A new Cody’s Original Roadhouse restaurant is coming to a growing Ocala retirement community.
The popular eatery will be located at the entrance to On Top of the World on the north side of State Road 200, adjacent to the Publix in Canopy Oak Center. It will be just west of SW 80th Avenue.
Construction on the new eatery should begin within the coming month, with a targeted opening date of December. The restaurant is owned Allen and Amy Musikantow of Cody’s American Restaurants LLC.
“We’re extremely excited about this new restaurant,” said Allen Musikantow, whose company also owns two locations in The Villages at Brownwood and Lake Sumter Landing town squares.
Musikantow said he has been working with Ken Colen, president of On Top of the World, for quite some time to bring the popular eatery to the retirement community. He said they originally wanted to move forward last year but the COVID-19 crisis quickly halted those plans.
“It just didn’t make sense to move forward during the pandemic,” he said.
But things have changed and Musikantow said the timing is right for Cody’s to resurface in Ocala after the original restaurant on S.W. College Road shut down permanently during the pandemic.
“Ken has got about 5,000 homes under construction at On Top of the World and other surrounding communities are bursting at the seams,” Musikantow said.
Musikantow added that the new Ocala Cody’s will include the staples that are extremely popular at his Villages locations such nightly entertainment, hand-cut steaks, fresh seafood, fall-off-the-bone ribs and a variety of desserts, as well as various all-day drink specials and 2-for-1 drink specials from 11 a.m.-7 p.m. seven days a week.
The Cody’s building, which will be built by Tallen Construction, will be the same design as the Brownwood Paddock Square location in The Villages. It will feature a large covered, climate-controlled outdoor patio where dining and nightly entertainment will take place. Musikantow said the eatery also will feature a putting green for customers to enjoy while they wait for their tables to become available.
“It should be really great,” he said.
Musikantow is the co-founder of Apple American Restaurants (Applebee’s). He and wife Amy also are residents of Ocala.